Good morning investors. The irony of dominance is that if you dominate slightly less than usual, detractors call it out even if nothing has come close to dethroning you.

Just as this is true in pro sports, it’s the case in the stock market.

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The Mag 7 keep chugging along

The Magnificent Seven are still the most consequential story of the stock market, even if they’ve taken a backseat to geopolitics this year.

Months of tariff updates and macro whiplash have stolen attention from the Big Tech bunch that includes Nvidia, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon and Tesla, yet their collective earnings dominance serves as a timely reminder as to their influence on markets.

For the latest quarter, the Magnificent Seven posted aggregate earnings growth of 27.7% compared to a year ago, according to FactSet.

While that’s slightly below the average 32.1% seen over the last three quarters, it still outpaced the 9.4% clip of the other 493 companies in the S&P 500.

Six of the seven names beat expectations, and total earnings growth exceeded forecasts by almost 15%.

Alphabet, Amazon, and Nvidia ranked as three of the five biggest contributors to the index’s earnings growth.  

That strength showed up in performance.

While Big Tech remains negative in 2025, the Magnificent Seven gained more than 13% last month to drag the S&P 500 to its best May since 1990. 

Despite the stellar quarter, analysts tracked by FactSet continue to expect lower earnings growth for the Magnificent Seven over the next several quarters: 

• Q2 2025 estimate: +14.0%

• Q3 2025 estimate: +8.9%

• Q4 2025 estimate: +10.6%

• Q1 2026 estimate: +10.2%

Analysts expect earnings growth for the S&P 493, meanwhile, to catch up with the Magnificent Seven by the first quarter of 2026.

That said, Big Tech still leads the way in earnings growth among the 11 sectors of the benchmark index, as the chart below illustrates.

For investors who can look beyond tariff uncertainty and White House messaging, the Big Tech narrative is worth monitoring.

Apple’s Worldwide Developers conference begins June 9, and Tesla’s expected to break more news regarding its robotaxis later in the month.

Indeed, even with cooling earnings expectations, the same leadership is there. No group of businesses is more foundational to the market’s earnings engine or trader psychology.

(Think how much Nvidia’s earnings rattle the market every quarter.)

While these stocks have lost some of their media allure, outperformance and speculative froth, they’ve retained their primacy in market share. 

Regardless of whether you own them in your portfolio, ignore their dominance at your own risk. 

Market snapshot

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Elsewhere

📊 Fed officials are divided on what to do with rates. Policymakers aren’t sure whether to hold interest rates steady or cut them. Some argue for “looking through” the impact of tariffs as temporary, which would leave the door open to cuts, while others believe there’s a risk of resurgent inflation. (Yahoo Finance)

🏦JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon isn’t retiring soon. The 69-year-old said Monday that he still loves what he does and still loves his country: “I don’t know what I’d do if I wasn’t fighting for something every day.” (WSJ)

🏙️ More office space is being removed than added for the first time in decades. After years of deep distress, the beat-down US office market is hitting an inflection point and the overall footprint of the sector is shrinking, data from CBRE Group shows. It’s the first time it’s happened this century. (CNBC)

Rapid-fire

• The White House wants countries’ best offers on tariffs by Wednesday (Reuters)

• Disney is laying off several hundred employees globally to cut costs (Yahoo Finance)

• The US ISM manufacturing data dropped to 39.9 for May, the lowest level since 2009 (TipRanks)

• Indian billionaire Gautam Adani is under new scrutiny from the US Justice Department for potential sanctions violations (WSJ)

• DraftKings and other sports-betting stocks dropped Monday after Illinois lawmakers passed a new tax on the industry (Investopedia)

• Steel stocks soared on Monday following Trump’s tariff announcement on Friday (Barron’s)

• The stock market is shrugging off the bearish, gloomy outlooks (Opening Bell Daily)

• Blueprint Medicines stock soared 26% Monday after French drugmaker Sanofi said it would acquire it for $9.5 billion (Barron’s)

Last thing

About me

📰 I’m Phil Rosen, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Opening Bell Daily. I’ve published books, lived on three continents, and won awards for my journalism, which has appeared in Business Insider, Fortune, Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg and Inc. Magazine.

I write our flagship newsletter to prepare you for each trading day — unpacking markets, economic data and Wall Street with analysis you won’t find anywhere else.

Feedback? Reply to this email, ping me on X @philrosenn, or write me directly at [email protected].